I have been looking for a purple velveteen dress for my personal collection for a long while now. However, even as a seasoned vintage collector and seller, the task was not as easy as you might think. So, how do you even find a velveteen piece? What do you do when it isn’t in great shape? How do you even restore and clean it to get it wearable again? Well, I will go through each of the steps from finding my dream velveteen dress to bringing it back to life!

Finding My Dream Dress

As mentioned above, it’s been a while now — possibly even a few years — where I have been searching for a very specific purple velveteen dress that works with my style BUT is also in my size! I am a vintage seller by trade, so you know I am always searching and finding great vintage! But when you have a very specific vision in mind, it can be very challenging to find that unicorn of a piece . . . especially when searching for it in a specific size!

You have probably already guessed that I was not able to find one with any of my own traditional sourcing methods - i.e estate sales, auctions, or even thrifting. I even tried searching for one online through a basic Google and Etsy search. But honestly there were just so many items muddling down my searches - items that did’t even fall within my search parameters - that I just gave up searching altogether for awhile.

Fortunately, as luck would have it, there is a better way!

Lately I have been using GEM App a lot for my own personal wardrobe and it has been a huge time saver and its really easy to use! You type the vintage or second hand item that you are looking for in the search bar and further filter your search by size, decade, location, etc. What you are left with are actual items within your search parameters!

But wait, there is more!!

There is an added benefit to this app! You can easily set alerts for when fresh vintage within your search criteria has been listed! I have a number of alerts set for various pieces I am always looking out for for my own closet! Each time a new piece has been listed I get a notifications sent to my email. You can easily click through the email to read more about the listings (i.e condition, size, etc.) and to find the shops links.

A screen shot taken of what GEMs homepage will look like for you! Check Gem out **HERE**!

Regarding the search for velveteen vintage specifically . . .

First let’s address just how difficult it can be to find vintage velveteen garments . . . If you type in the word velveteen in your search you will likely notice the number of vintage items available is extremely limited. I think this is in part due to the fact that many people use the term “velvet” instead, seemingly as a broad umbrella term for all velvets, velveteens, and even velours! To remedy this, I recommend just using the term “velvet” when looking for any velveteen piece. If you need help learning the differences between these fabrics read my “Velveteen vs. Velvet” blog HERE.

Using GEM to find my dress was pretty easy! I simply typed “Purple Velvet Dress” in the search bar on GEMs app (check GEM out HERE) and filtered by decade (40s, 50s, 60s) . There was a multitude of pieces to look at, all of which fell within my search parameters. Once I found a piece I liked - that was actually velveteen because thats my preference - I simply followed the link GEM provided, read the description, double checked the measurements, and then I purchased my dress!

What you can expect to see when searching for your next vintage look through GEM! Notice the filter tab in the left corner … use it, it is your friend!!

P.S. I am not an affiliate and will not get paid to advertise GEM here. HOWEVER all of my shop listings (like with many vintage shops) can be found through this awesome search engine!

Fixing Up Velveteen

The piece I chose was a bit cheaper than a fully restored and cleaned piece - and obviously the price reflected the issues to the item. But this choice was intentional as I always love myself a good project piece because it gives me more opportunities to further my skills at cleaning and sewing. Besides, given my experience already, I was pretty confident that I could clean and fix it up on my own without too much difficulty.

Cleaning Velveteen

I will admit, I was VERY nervous the first time I ever cleaned a vintage velveteen garment! But at the time, I was very new to the vintage scene, so honestly everything was a bit scary. If you are feeling the same way, know that it is ok! You can always opt to get it dry cleaned instead.

For me however, dry cleaning pieces for my own closet is not really an option as I already spend a good deal doing this for those garments in the shop that cannot be hand washed. As such, when the fabric and condition of a garment allows for it, I always prefer to clean things on my own. If you have decided to take the plunge and hand wash your velveteen piece, I just ask that you be 100% sure that it is velveteen. If it is velvet you will most likely ruin the piece by submerging it in water - so just be certain! If you need help determining the differences of velvet and velveteen, read this post HERE. Further, if it is a rare and very old piece, I strongly advice you just to get it dry cleaned as it’s just not worth the risk of submerging it in water.

So, you have determined you have a velveteen garment and have decided to take your turn at hand-washing . . . what’s next?

To wash my pretty purple dress I used my large bathtub instead of my laundry sink. I wanted to ensure that I could lay it out flat for an even clean and rinse, while also ensuring minimal movement of the garment when it was wet just in case it was a bit more fragile than I was expecting. When hand washing I always advise you wear gloves as there is often some really nasty looking water in the tub before the garments is clean. I always use colder water when washing vintage, unless it is sturdy white cotton that needs oxiclean. I also usually use an unscented mild laundry detergent, which I encourage you to use as well.

Washing this piece was pretty easy. I simply let it soak in the lavender soup, rinsed and repeated twice to ensure all the dirty water was gone. I then rinsed it very throughly a final time to make sure all the detergent residue was gone and the water ran clean. At this stage I let it sit flat in the tub to allow as much of the water to drain out as was possible (about 20 minutes). This is important because velveteen gets REALLY heavy when it’s wet and you do not want to risk lifting it and damaging the fabric or the seams.

When a lot of the superficial water was drained, I set up my drying rack and laid the piece flat upon it to dry further. At this point the velveteen fabric is still pretty heavy so you should not simply put it on a hanger to finish drying as that can destroy the shoulder seams!

Now this next step is a bit tricky regarding the timing… so make sure to pay attention!

Steaming Velveteen

The act of steaming velveteen itself is not hard, not any more so than with any other vintage garment. But there is a trick to it.

I have found over the years (I actually think another vintage seller told me this trick) that steaming the velveteen while it is still damp is crucial! The tricky part is getting to it before it is fully dry, but where it is not so wet that you could damage it while the piece is hanging on the hanger. My best advice is to just keep checking it throughout the day until it reaches this sweet spot. At this point you can hang your garment and steam!

The steaming process is crucial to ensure that both the wrinkles and flattening of the pile is mitigated. It also helps to make the velveteen look more crips and fresh once it is fully dried. I recommend adding a sock to the head of your steamer to minimize water drips onto the fabric. I know I did not show this in the photo, but adding this helps to minimize any water spots that would show up later on once dried and honestly this is just generally good practice when steaming your vintage!

Mending Velveteen

When I find a vintage velveteen piece the flaws are often pretty minimal. Usually it’s a few seam pops or a hem that needs restitching - in this case it was both. This is in contrast to true velvet which I usually find with shattering seams and pulls - generally much more difficult repairs that I have to outsource to my local alterations and repairs lady. As you can expect, the easier mending — something I can do on my own — just makes more sense when it’s something for my own wardrobe!

Seam pops are pretty easy repairs, especially when they are only a few inches long. The best way to remedy this is with the invisible stitch. If you are not familiar with the invisible stitch, my advice is that you watch a few videos about it online. Seam pops are probably the single most common repair I do with vintage clothing, both in my own closets as well as for the shop. You will likely want to learn this repair technique if you have a large vintage wardrobe.

I also had to fix part of the hem of this dress as a portion of it had become unstitched and was hanging down. The hem repair on this particular dress was pretty easy as I was lucky the crease for the original hem was still a tad bit visible (I intentionally did not steam that out to ensure I could follow the line later). To repair the hem, I simply folded the fabric at the crease point, pinned it, and loosely stitched it back into place!

My best advice for when you are mending, is to just take your time. Patience is the biggest part of doing this well. You should never rush it — that’s when mistakes happen. This step does take a lot of time, but if you have a good audio book on, it should just fly by!

The Finished Product!

It took a bit of work — let’s face it, vintage always does — but now I have the purple vintage velveteen dress of my dreams!

I was able to fix it up just in time too for my market last week, though admittedly it was a tad chilly for just the dress and I spent most of the day wearing my coat overtop. But I am looking forward to showing it off again soon!